Lincoln as a Transformational Leader

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Lincoln's leadership ability has been one of the most discussed qualities of our 16th president. Although many books and articles have been written on the subject of Lincoln as a leader,[1] only a few studies have employed modern leadership theory to analyze and qualify Lincoln's performance.[2] Modern leadership theory is used today by both academicians and corporate America to evaluate the performance and effectiveness of leaders and managers of organizations. By scrutinizing Lincoln's performance in light of leadership theory it is possible to gain additional understanding of his outstanding ability as president. Leaders have been studied for centuries, but it has been in only the last one-hundred years that the academic world has made a serious effort to develop scientific leadership theories. Initially driven by industrialists' desire to increase productivity in the manufacturing work force, researchers such as F. W. Taylor began efficiency studies in the early twentieth century. It was not long before theorists realized that productivity was a function of the mind as well as physical or organizational factors, and studies concentrated increasingly on how man is psychologically motivated to perform. Dozens of theories and their variations were developed in the twentieth century by management theorists such as F. E. Fiedler, N. Maier, R. Stodgill, R. Likert, K. Maher, B. Bass, and J. M. Burns. Leadership theories with names such as psychoanalytical, contingency, charismatic, attribution, situational, transactional, and transformational were developed as academicians attempted to discover the ingredients of the effective leader.[3] It was in 1978 that James McGregor Burns, a presidential scholar and leadership theorist, first proposed what would become known as transformational leadership theory.[4] According to Bernard M. Bass, a present-day

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